Eyeball movement monitoring method and device

Abstract

An apparatus and method for monitoring the movement of eyeball comprises collecting an image frame of pupil; extracting a pupil pixel set (S); extracting a boundary value of the pupil pixel set; setting a center point based on the boundary value and dividing the pupil pixel set into four quadrant sets (S 1 , S 2 , S 3 and S 4 ); calculating the coordinate of cross points of the two straight lines and traversing points in the four quadrants, wherein the cross points form a pupil center coordinate set (S 5 ); and calculating an average value of horizontal and vertical directions according to the pupil center coordinate set (S 5 ).

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. A method for monitoring the movement of eyeball, comprises the following steps: collecting an image frame of pupil; extracting a pupil pixel set (S) according to a predetermined threshold; extracting a boundary value of the pupil pixel set; setting a center point based on the boundary value and dividing the pupil pixel set into a first quadrant set (S 1 ), a second quadrant set (S 2 ), a third quadrant set (S 3 ) and a fourth quadrant set (S 4 ), wherein pixels of the first quadrant set (S 1 ) and the third quadrant set (S 3 ) form a straight line, and the pixels of the second quadrant set (S 2 ) and the fourth quadrant set (S 4 ) also form a straight line; calculating the coordinate of crosspoints of the two straight lines and traversing points in the four quadrants, wherein the crosspoints form a pupil center coordinate set (S 5 ); and calculating an average value of horizontal and vertical directions according to the pupil center coordinate set (S 5 ), wherein the average value is a center point position of the pupil. 
     
     
       2. The method for monitoring the movement of eyeball according to  claim 1 , characterized in that the method further comprises the step of removing any point from the pupil pixel set (S) if left, right, upper and lower adjacent points of the point are not within the set. 
     
     
       3. The method for monitoring the movement of eyeball according to  claim 2 , characterized in that the method further comprises the step of resetting the boundary value if the point affects the boundary value. 
     
     
       4. The method for monitoring the movement of eyeball according to  claim 1 , characterized in that the image frame is collected by an infrared camera device. 
     
     
       5. The method for monitoring the movement of eyeball according to  claim 1 , characterized in that the threshold is the gray threshold equal to 35. 
     
     
       6. An apparatus for monitoring the movement of eyeball, characterized in that the apparatus comprises: a video image collection device for collecting a video or an image of an eye regularly and converting the video image into an electric signal; an analysis control device for receiving the electric signal sent from the video image collection device, calculating a position of a pupil based on different gray levels of pixels of the pupil and extracting data of the eye movement at horizontal and vertical directions; a display device for receiving the original video image as well as the eye movement data analyzed by the analysis control device and displaying the video image and the data of the eye movement at the horizontal and vertical directions in a graphics mode; a storage device for receiving the image and analysis results sent from the analysis control device, compressing and storing the image and analysis results: wherein the analysis control device is configured for extracting a pupil pixel set (S) from the image sent by the video image collection device according to a predetermined threshold; extracting a boundary value of the pupil pixel set; setting a center point based on the boundary value and divide the pupil pixel set into a first quadrant set (S 1 ), a second quadrant set (S 2 ), a third quadrant set (S 3 ) and a fourth quadrant set (S 4 ), wherein pixels of the first quadrant set (S 1 ) and the third quadrant set (S 3 ) form a straight line, and the pixels of the second quadrant set (S 2 ) and the fourth quadrant set (S 4 ) also form the straight line; calculate the coordinate of crosspoints of the two straight lines and traverse points in the four quadrants, wherein the crosspoints form a pupil center coordinate set (S 5 ); and calculating an average value of horizontal and vertical directions according to the pupil center coordinate set (S 5 ), wherein the average value is a center point position of the pupil. 
     
     
       7. The apparatus for monitoring the movement of eyeball according to  claim 6 , characterized in that the apparatus for monitoring the movement of eyeball further comprises an external interface device connected with an external computing device.